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AUTHOR: 


STURTEVANT,  E.  H. 


TITLE: 


COINCIDENCE  OF 
ACCENT  AND  ICTUS 

PLACE: 

[NEW  YORK] 

DA  TE : 

[1919?] 


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OR:     POL: 
NNC}:cNNC 
Sturtievant,  E.  H. 

-I  '^Tt.Tf'"'l'\"'   T'"'  '"^  '''''   ''   '^^"'^^^  ^"-^  Terence^.h[n,icrofor. 

j.rCL.y  t.   H.  oturtevant. 

260  [Now  YQrK,}:bCohjmbia  University  {:rl9l9'?) 

300  p.  234-385. 

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MfiNUFfiCTURED   TO  flllM   STflNDflRDS 
BY   APPLIED   IMRGEp     INC. 


Reprinted  for  private  circulation  from 
Classical  Philology  Vol.  XIV,  Nos.  3,  and  4,  July  and  October,  1919 


THE  COINCIDENCE  OF  ACCENT  AND  ICTUS  IN 

PLAUTUS  AND  TERENCE 
By  E.  H.  Sturtevant 

That  the  Roman  poets,  and  especially  the  early  dramatists,  tried 
to  construct  their  hnes  so  that  accent  and  ictus  would  fall  upon  the 
same  syllable  has  been  the  opinion  of  a  long  line  of  distinguished 
scholars.  1  Others,  however,  have  maintained  that  such  harmony 
as  we  observe  in  Latin  poetry  results  solely  from  the  nature  of  Latin 
accentuation  and  the  rhythm  of  ancient  verse.  In  the  first  place  the 
Latin  accent  usually  rests  on  a  long  syllable  or,  less  often,  on  a  short 
syllable  followed  by  another  short,  and  ancient  verse  forms  place  the 
ictus  on  a  long  syllable  or,  in  some  cases,  on  a  short  syllable  before 
another  short;  hence  the  two  tend  to  coincide.  In  the  second  place 
it  is  argued  that  the  kinds  of  caesura  preferred  by  the  Roman  poets 
favor  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus. 

To  consider  the  second  argument  first,  there  is  undoubtedly  a 
connection  between  the  position  of  word-ends  in  the  verse  and 
harmony  or  clash  of  accent  and  ictus.  Shall  we  then  assume  that 
the  Roman  poets  for  an  unknown  reason  departed  from  their  Greek 
models  in  the  employment  of  caesura  and  consequently  produced 
harmony  of  accent  and  ictus,  or  shall  we  suppose  that  they  tried  to 
secure  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus  and  consequently  departed  from 
the  traditional  treatment  of  caesura  ?  To  me  the  second  alternative 
seems  the  more  satisfactory.     At  any  rate  we  are  under  no  obligation 

'  For  a  history  of  the  discussion  up  to  1870,  see  Corssen,  Auasprache  Vokalismua 
und  Betonung  d.  lat.  Sprache,  IV,  949  fT.  Since  that  date  the  doctrine  has  been  sup- 
ported by  Humphreys  (although  unwillingly),  Trans.  Amer.  Phil.  Assoc,  VII,  107-45; 
IX,  39-58;  Lindsay,  Jour,  of  Phil.,  XX,  135-58;  The  Captivi  of  Plautus,  pp.  257-374; 
Skutsch,  Plautinisches  und  Romanisches,  pp.  136,  153-56;  Satura  Viadrina,  pp.  122- 
^i=Klein€  Schriften,  pp.  92-113;  Ahlberg,  Studia  de  Accentu  Latino,  De  Proceleus- 
nuUids  lamborum  Trochaeorumqae  Antiquae  Scaenicae  Poesis  Latinae,  De  Correptione 
lambica  Plautina.  The  other  side  of  the  debate  has  been  taken  by  W.  Meyer,  Abhand- 
lungen  der  k.  bayerischen  Akad.,  phil.-hist.  Klasse,  XVII,  1-120,  and  Lucian  Mttller, 
I>e  Re  Metrica  Poetarum  Latinorum^,  pp.  233-40.  For  the  theory  that  Latin  accent 
was  a  matter  of  pitch,  see  especially  Vendryes,  Recherches  sur  Vhistoire  et  les  effets  de 
UntensiU  initiale  en  latin,  p.  74  and  references.  Bennett's  theory  of  the  ictus  was 
propounded  in  the  Amer.  Jour.  Phil.,  XIX,  361-83. 
[Classical  Philologt  XIV,  July,  1919]       234 


235  Accent  and  Ictus  in  Plautus  and  Terence 

to  accept  the  first  hypothesis.  I  shall  therefore  in  this  paper  dis- 
regard all  questions  of  caesura  on  the  ground  that  the  reasons  why 
certain  types  of  caesura  were  preferred  are  quite  unknown,  and  that 
caesura  is  at  least  as  Ukely  to  have  resulted  from  as  to  have  caused 
the  position  of  the  accented  syllable  in  the  verse. 

It  is  my  present  purpose  to  test,  as  far  as  Plautus  and  Terence 
are  concerned,  the  dogma  that  the  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus  in 
Latin  poetry  results  from  the  tendency  of  both  the  Latin  accent  and 
the  ictus  of  classical  verse  to  stand  on  long  syllables  or,  less  often,  on 
the  first  of  two  short  syllables.  I  have  undertaken  to  measure 
statistically  the  tendency  of  iambic  and  trochaic  verse  to  place  the 
ictus  upon  the  penult  when  long  and  upon  the  antepenult  when  the 
penult  is  short,  and  I  have  compared  with  this  the  actual  usage  of 
Plautus  and  Terence.  The  procedure  has  been  as  follows.  A 
number  of  iambic  and  trochaic  lines  (about  275  verses  of  Plautus  and 
as  many  of  Terence)  were  "scanned"  thus: 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


236 


Persa  5 


Then  all  possible  combinations  of  a  long  syllable  and  a  following 
syllable  of  any  quantity  were  picked  out  and  the  incidence  of  the 
ictus  was  recorded.  In  the  foregoing  line  the  group  -  =  occurs  with 
ictus  on  the  ultima  six  times  and  with  ictus  on  the  penult  five  times. 
In  the  lines  of  Plautus  which  were  studied  the  syllable  group  -  ^ 
occurs  with  the  ictus  on  the  ultima  922  times  and  with  the  ictus  on 
the  penult  1,249  times;  that  is,  the  ictus  falls  upon  the  penult  m  58 
per  cent  of  the  occurrences.  The  structure  of  Plautine  iambics  and 
trochaics  therefore  tends  to  place  the  ictus  upon  the  penult  of  the 
syllable  group  _  a  58  per  cent  of  the  time. 

For  the  second  t«rm  of  the  comparison  I  have  recorded  the 
incidence  of  the  ictus  upon  all  the  dissyllabic  words  with  long  penult 
in  Plautus'  Persa.  In  a  number  of  occurrences  such  words  carry  no 
ictus  at  all  (that  is,  in  case  of  iambic  shortening  of  the  first  syllable  or 
elision  of  the  second  syllable).  We  need  not  decide  at  present 
whether  any  significance  is  to  be  attached  to  the  use  of  a  word  without 
an  ictus;  it  is  clear  that  even  if  such  words  were  accented  in  ordinaij 
speech  Plautine  verse  cannot  teach  us  anything  about  their  accent. 
We  have  therefore  disregarded  all  words  which  do  not  have  an  ictus. 


In  the  iambic  and  trochaic  lines  of  the  Persa  dissyllables  with  long 
penult  have  the  ictus  on  the  ultima  148  times  and  on  the  penult  877 
times,  or  in  83  per  cent  of  the  occurrences.  Whereas  the  struc- 
ture of  the  verse  tended  to  place  the  ictus  on  the  penult  of  words 
whose  rhythm  is  _  a  only  58  per  cent  of  the  time,  Plautus  managed  to 
place  it  there  83  per  cent  of  the  time.  At  least  in  words  of  this  type 
there  is  evidently  some  powerful  factor  at  work  aside  from  the  struc- 
ture of  the  verse;  and  since  an  effort  to  make  accent  and  ictus 
coincide  would  work  in  precisely  this  way  it  is  natural  to  infer  the 
existence  of  such  a  desire.  If  we  find  that  words  of  other  rhythmical 
structure  behave  similarly  the  inference  will  become  irresistible. 

The  statistics  in  Tables  I  and  II  cover  the  dissyllables  and 
trisyllables  of  the  Persa  of  Plautus  and  the  Andria  of  Terence,  and  the 
quadrisyllables  of  the  Persa,  Poenulus,  Andria,  and  Heauton  Timoru- 
menos.  I  have  counted  the  following  numbers  of  words  of  the 
several  rhythms: 


w  a. 

^^  w 

^  -  s 

-  w  S£ 

w  -  :£ 

<w 

^  ^  ^  ^ 

Plautus 

798 
869 

877 
1244 

381 
499 

309 
573 

173 
235 

333 
401 

113 
99 

Terence 

~  w  w  S 

w  -  w  5S 

w  S 

w  w  _5S 

—  w  —  S 

^ w 

\^ 

Plautus 

209 
296 

55 
44 

168 
187 

142 
127 

160 
154 

23 
31 

167 
145 

Terence 

Such  groups  as  noctisque,  lepidumstj  itanest,  iuhedum,  which 
contain  universally  recognized  enclitics  or  are  customarily  printed  as 
single  words,  have  been  treated  as  single  w^ords.^  Our  statistics 
would  be  more  significant  if  we  had  gone  farther  in  recognizing 
sentence  accent;  but  to  do  so  seemed  scarcely  possible  in  the  present 
state  of  knowledge.  For  a  similar  reason  no  account  has  been  taken 
of  the  exceptions  to  the  penultima  law  recorded  by  the  later  gram- 
marians; we  do  not  know  the  precise  limits  of  such  accentuations  as 
illiCy  adhuCy  nostras,  and  consili,  and  we  do  not  know  that  any  such 
accentuations  are  as  early  as  Plautus  and  Terence.     Consequently 

*  It  is  assumed  that  the  accent  of  such  combinations  followed  the  penultima  law; 
»ee  Shipley,  Class.  Phil.,  VIII,  23  flf. 


237 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Plautus  and  Terence 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


238 


such  words  have  been  grouped  with  others  of  the  same  quantitative 
rhythm.  Words  which  have  been  shortened  by  the  iambic  law  have 
been  counted  according  to  their  original,  unshortened  form,  in  the 
beHef  that  iambic  shortening  is  always  a  function  of  the  historic 

accent. 

Words  with  ehded  ultima  have  not  been  separated  from  those 

whose  ultima  has  syllabic  value;  in  Andria  21, 

potiiis  quam  ist6ram  obscuram  dilig^ntidm, 

istdrum  and  obscuram  have  been  put  in  the  same  category.     It  is 
altogether  likely  that  the  accent  of  words  with  elided  ultima  sonic- 
times  receded,  especially  in  the  case  of  the  encHtics  -ce,  -ne,  and  -que;' 
but  until  the  details  of  the  matter  are  worked  out  it  is  impossible  to 
take  account  of  it  in  a  statistical  study.     It  is  quite  clear  at  any  rate 
that  we  cannot  disregard  eUded  syllables  in  the  present  study;   we 
find  such  ictuses  as  repudi{o)  and  henefici{um) ^  although  trisyllables 
and  quadrisyllables  consisting  entirely  of  short  syllables  never  have 
the  ictus  on  the  penult.     As  might  be  expected,  however,  the  ictus 
disagrees  with  the  penultima  law  somewhat  more  frequently  in  elided 
words  than  in  others;  in  words  of  the  rhythm  -  -  s.  the  ictus  stands 
on  the  antepenult  in  Plautus'  Persa  35  per  cent  of  the  time,  while 
38  per  cent  of  the  elided  words  show  that  ictus.     Our  figures  therefore 
would  have  been  sUghtly  more  favorable  to  the  theory  of  intentional 
comcidence  of  accent  and  ictus  if  the  ehded  words  had  been 

eUminated. 

Tables  I  and  II  exhibit  the  results  of  our  count  in  the  form  of 
percentage.  At  the  head  of  each  block  is  an  indication  of  the  rhyth- 
mic group  to  be  treated.  The  Roman  numerals  in  the  second  line 
indicate  the  incidence  of  the  ictus:  I  stands  for  the  ultima,  II  for  the 
penult.  III  for  the  antepenult,  and  IV  for  the  fourth  syllable  from  the 
end.  In  case  a  syllable  group  or  a  word  has  two  ictus  syllables,  one 
of  which  is  the  penult  (e.g.,  libertdtis),  it  is  counted  only  in  column  II. 
If  there  are  two  ictus  syllables,  one  of  which  is  the  ultima  (e.g., 
ddmigrdnt,  fdcilius),  the  word  is  counted  in  column  III  or  IV,  as  the 
case  may  be,  and  not  in  column  I.     In  each  block  the  column  which 

i  It  should  be  possible  to  fill  this  gap  in  our  knowledge  by  the  method  here 
employed,  and  a  student  of  mine  is  at  work  upon  the  problem. 


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239  Accent  and  Ictus  in  Plaotus  and  Terenck 

corresponds  to  the  accentuation  of  classical  Latin  is  printed  in  bold- 
faced type.  The  third  and  sixth  number  of  each  bold-faced  column 
is  the  difference  between  the  two  preceding  numbers;  it  represents 
the  diiTerence  between  the  unhampered  tendency  of  the  verse  struc- 
ture and  the  poet's  actual  usage-in  other  words,  the  strength  of 
the  effort  to  produce  harmony  between  accent  and  ictus. 

With  four  exceptions  the  figures  in  all  blocks  of  both  tables  seem 
quite  conclusive.  The  case  appears  in  fact  to  be  definitely  proved 
by  these  statistics;  but  it  will  be  worth  while  to  append  a  few 

The  figures  in  the  first  block  of  Table  I  show  that  while  an  effort 
was  made  to  put  the  ictus  upon  the  penult  rather  than  upon  the 
ultima  of  pyrrhic  and  iambic  words,  Plautus  nevertheless  succeeded 
in  doing  so  only  42  per  cent  of  the  time  and  Terence  onlyj5  per  cent 
of  the  time.  These  low  figures  are  largely  due  to  the  difhculty  ol 
constructing  the  iambic  close,  which  requires  an  ictus  on  the  ultmia 
If  we  eliminate  the  iambic  close  from  both  sides  of  our  comparison, 
we  find  that  Plautus  puts  the  ictus  on  the  penult  of  syllable  groups 
in  38  per  cent  of  the  occurrences  and  of  words  in  68  per  cent,  while 
in  Terence  the  ictus  rests  on  the  penult  of  34  per  cent  of  the  syllabe 
groups  and  of  66  per  cent  of  the  words.  On  the  basis  of  these  figures, 
the  poets^  effort  to  secure  harmony  between  accent  and  ictus  appears 
to  operate  in  30  per  cent  of  the  words  in  Plautus  and  in  32  per  cent 

of  them  in  Terence.  ,  .    ., .  n 

It  has  long  been  known  that  words  of  the  type  of  facthus  usually 
have  the  ictus  on  the  first  syllable.  Lindsay  {Latin  Language,  pp. 
173  f  )  brings  this  fact  into  connection  with  the  post-Plautme  syncope 
of  halineae  into  halneae  and  the  like,  which  compels  us  to  assume  an 
early  accentuation  of  these  words  upon  the  fourth  syllable  from  the 
end.  The  recognition  of  such  accentuation  brings  the  figures  m  the 
first  block  of  Table  II  into  harmony  with  the  others. 

Syllable  groups  and  words  of  the  rhythm  .  .  -  x  can  be  got  into 
the  verse  in  just  one  way,  and  so  we  cannot  expect  any  evidence 

rom  them.  .     „,  , ,    tt  +n 

The  figures  in  the  next  to  the  last  block  in  Table  II  seem  to 

indicate  slightly  less  harmony  between  accent  and  ictus  in  the  actual 

usage  of  the  poets  than  the  structure  of  the  verse  tended  to  produce. 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


240 


Since  most  of  the  instances  of  ictus  on  the  long  penult  show  iambic 
shortening  of  the  second  syllable,  and  since  we  find  two  ictus  positions 
aside  from  the  one  in  harmony  with  the  accent  (>:,  x  «  i  and  w  ^  -  i) 
it  is  probable  that  there  was  some  metrical  difficulty  in  getting  words 
of  this  type  into  the  verse.  The  matter  evidently  has  some  connec- 
tion with  the  tendency  to  avoid  dividing  the  two  short  syllables  of  a 
dactyl  or  anapest  between  two  words  one  of  which  is  a  polysyllable; 
but  the  limitations  of  this  tendency  itself  and  the  reasons  for  it  are 

far  from  certain.^     It  is  noteworthy  that  words  of  the  rhythm - 

are  comparatively  rare;  our  figures  are  based  upon  twenty-three 
words  in  Plautus'  Persa  and  Poenulus  and  thirty-one  in  the  A7idria 
and  Heauton.  This  slight  discrepancy,  however  it  is  to  be  explained, 
cannot  weigh  against  the  decisive  figures  in  the  other  blocks. 

Very  significant  are  the  columns  which  indicate  in  the  syllable 
groups  an  ictus  which  is  regularly  avoided  in  the  words.     The 
structure  of  the  verse  calls  for  such  an  ictus  as  ^  .:,  ^  in  n  percent  of 
all  occurrences,  but  it  does  not  occur  in  any  word  in  the  iambic  and 
trochaic  parts  of  the  Persa,  and  in  the  Andria  it  occurs  only  once  in 
the  exclamatory  hicijie.     The  ictus  ^^^  might  be  expected  in  from 
22  per  cent  to  32  per  cent  of  all  words;   but  it  occurs  only  in  the 
compound  indefinite  nesdo  quis,  where  it  was  probably  quite  regular, 
in  hocdne,  sidne,  etc.,  and  in  a  very  few  other  words.     Equally 
remarkable  is  the  avoidance  of  ^  ^  -  and  _  ^  st  at  the  end  of  words 
of  four  or  five  syllables.     This  peculiarity  of  early  dramatic  verse  has 
long  been  familiar  to  scholars;   it  can  scarcely  be  due  to  any  other 
cause  than  a  desire  to  harmonize  accent  and  ictus,  especially  in  view 
of  our  demonstration  that  the  structure  of  the  verse  tends  to  place 
an  occasional  ictus  on  these  short  syllables.^ 

Words  of  more  than  four  syllables  are  so  much  less  frequent  than 
those  we  have  been  discussing  that  they  might  safely  be  neglected. 
Nevertheless  I  include  a  table  on  the  five-syllable  words,  basing  it 
upon  the  iambics  and  trochaics  of  the  Amphitruo,  Asinaria,  Aulularia, 
Bacchides,  Persa,  Poenulus,  Pseudolus,  Rudens,  Stichus,  Trinummus, 

»See  especially  Klotz,  Grundzuge  der  altromische  Metrik,  pp.  254  ff.,  307;  Leo, 
Plnutiniache  Forschungen,  pp.  236  S. ;  Maurenbrecher,  Hiatus  und  Verachleifung  im 
alien  Latein,  pp.  26  flf.;  Lindsay,  The  Captivi  of  Plautus,  pp.  68  f. 

2  See  especially  Ahlberg,  Studia  de  Accentu  Latino,  pp.  35  f. 


241 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Plautus  and  Terence 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


242 


and  Truculentus  of  Plautus,  and  the  six  plays  of  Terence.  I  have 
counted  the  following  numbers  of  words  of  the  several  quantitative 
rhythms: 


Plautus . . . 
Terence... 

13 
13 

15 
18 

28 
12 

29 
25 

124 
38 

148 
66 

15 
2 

201 

83 

Plautus . . . 
Terence . . . 

76 
26 

226 
99 

77 
21 

108 
67 

53 
32 

23 
16 

10 

1 

37 
10 

The  totals  are  in  some  cases  so  small  that  percentages  based  upon 
them  would  be  misleading;  for  example,  I  have  found  ten  words  in 

Plautus  of  the  rhythm »,  all  with  the  ictus  on  the  penult, 

while  Terence  has  only  one  such  word  {venustatisque,  Hec.  848),  and  it 
has  the  ictus  on  the  antepenult.  Under  these  circumstances  it  seemed 
preferable  to  combine  the  statistics  for  Terence  with  those  for 
Plautus,  in  order  to  secure  larger  totals  and  correspondingly  more 
reliable  percentages  (Table  III). 

There  are  several  five-syllable  rhythms  which  can  be  got  into  the 
verse  in  only  one  way,  and  consequently  four  blocks  show  100  per 
cent  for  syllable  groups  and  words.     In  three  of  these  cases  the  ictus 

falls  upon  the  accented  syllable;  but  the  rhythm =  requires 

an  ictus  on  the  antepenult,  although  the  accent  falls  on  the  penult. 
None  of  these  blocks  can  contribute  any  evidence. 

In  nearly  all  the  other  blocks  there  is  evidence,  in  most  cases  very 
strong  evidence,  that  the  poets  tried  to  secure  harmony  between 
accent  and  ictus.  Especially  noteworthy  are  words  of  the  rhythm 
and =,  which  always  have  the  ictus  on  the  ac- 
cented antepenult,  although  the  structure  of  the  verse  would  favor 
ictus  on  the  penult  in  43  per  cent  and  23  per  cent  of  the  occur- 
rences, respectively. 

While  words  of  the  rhythm =^  (e.g.,  adsimiUter)  show  ictus 

on  the  antepenult  a  little  more  often  than  the  similar  syllable  groups, 
there  is  a  much  stronger  tendency  to  put  the  ictus  on  the  fourth 
syUable  from  the  end.     It  seems  probable  that  these  words  were 


)i 

1 

ee 

M 

oo 

>l 

«oo» 

«o 

NH 

> 

t^ 

to 

CO 

f> 

-HIO 

)H 

(N'H 

>l 
) 

> 

HH 

^ta     ^ 

t-H 

»-ae     ^ 

1 

1 

»M 

00 

f-H 

> 

t*o 

1^ 

•«t<© 

)l 
> 

) 

MO      M 

J 

1—4 

1 

CQ 

1 

4< 

iJ 

) 

• 

iJ 

• 

»-<      H 

HH 

o 

• 

S    02 

1-4 

1^ 

• 

w    ? 

• 

J     r 

> 

h    o 

)l 

« 

o 

HM 

<DO       ^ 

o 

hH 

Me9 

^ 

t-^ 

W 

H-l 

^H 

> 

)l 

> 

01  lO 

) 

l-H 

W-H 

1 

) 

NH 

B-M     la 

) 

hH 

*o     ^ 

tM 

a  • 

1-4 

»H      • 

i\ 

s 

2  • 

to  ' 

«    . 

labl 
rds 

--  o 

>>> 

m> 

1 

HH 

HH 

(OO           ^ 
lOO 

HH 
HH 

00  cs 

M^           «» 

HH 

88 

1-Hl-H 

HH 
HH 

§2 

OM        e« 

OCO            M 

HH 

oo 
oo 

»HtH 

oo 
oo 

»<»H 

> 

Mce        « 

> 

CO 

<00»            M 

»>o        m 
e>o        M 

CO 

>l 

HH 

t-o        w 

lOO           <« 

HH 

CO 

Syllable  groups 
Words 

243 


Accent  and  Ictus  in  Plautus  and  Terence 


E.  H.  Sturtevant 


244 


accented  on  the  fourth-last  syllable  in  the  early  period,  precisely  as 
was  the  case  with  fadlius,  etc.  (cf.  Lindsay,  The  Latin  Language, 
pp.  173  f.).  That  our  figures  lend  no  support  to  the  accentuation 
puiritiae,  which  is  indicated  by  Horace's  puertiae,  is  probably  due  to 
the  fact  that  twenty-two  of  our  twenty-six  words  of  this  type  are 
compounds  whose  second  member  contains  three  syllables  {hene- 
ficium,  malefidum,  fidicinium).  At  any  rate  all  of  these  compounds 
have  the  ictus  on  III  or  V  in  every  occurrence.* 

The  figures  in  our  fourth  block  seem  to  indicate  an  early  accen- 
tuation amidtia;   but  the  frequent  iambic  shortening  of  such  words 
as  ministerium  and  caUfieri  (cf .  Lindsay,  The  Captivi  of  Plautus,  p.  34) 
and  the  occasional  shortening  of  amidtia  and  pudidtia  (cf.  Skutsch, 
Satura  Viadrina,  p.  nO  =  KUine  Schriften,  p.  100)  prove  that  the 
accent  of  these  words  rested  on  the  antepenult.     There  has  been  a 
strange  unwilhngness  to  admit  the  operation  of  the  iambic  law  in  the 
two  words  last  mentioned,  and  consequently  all  editors  prefer  to 
scan  them  with  the  second  syllable  long  wherever  that  is  possible. 
In  compihng  my  statistics  I  have  followed  the  marking  of  these  words 
in  the  standard  editions;  but  I  am  convinced  that  we  should  always 
prefer  the  scansion  amidtia  to  amidtia,  where  either  one  is  possible. 
This  is  the  case  in  Amph.  899  (pudidtiae),  Poen.  1215,  and  Stichus 
414.    If  we  transfer  these  three  words  from  one  column  to  the  other, 
our  percentages  are  III,  47.5  and  IV,  52.5,  and  the  -3  becomes 
+4.5.     It  is  noteworthy  that  of  the  remaining  twenty-one  words 
with  ictus  on  the  fourth-last  syllable  seventeen  stand  immediately 
before  the  iambic  close;  for  example,  Rud.  1239: 

declpitur  in  trans6nna  avdritid  sud. 

Most  of  them,  like  this  one,  are  followed  by  dissyllabic  encUtics. 

Our  study,  as  stated  above,  has  necessarily  been  confined  to  word 
accent  and  the  universally  recognized  encHtics.     On  the  basis  of 

1 1  have  listed  henefacere  with  words  of  the  rhythm  ^ s,  since  bene  was  origi- 
nally an  iambus.  The  weakening  of  a  to  i  in  the  third  syllable  of  beneficium  and  male- 
ficium,  however,  indicates  that  these  compounds  are  older  than  the  corresponding  verbs, 
and  were  originally  *beni-ficium  and  *mali-fic%um;  wherefore  the  nouns  have  been  listed 
here.  It  is  possible  that  at  some  time  before  Plautus  the  verb  benefacere  altered  the 
noun  to  beneficium,  in  which  case  I  am  wrong  in  placing  the  nouns  here.  It  is  equally 
possible  that  after  the  shortening  of  the  second  syllable  of  the  verb  it  affected  the 
vocalism  of  the  noun,  and  at  the  same  time  the  accent  of  the  noun  was  assimUated  to 
that  of  the  verb. 


this  material  we  find  a  strong  and  nearly  consistent  eflFort  to  place 
the  verse  ictus  upon  accented  syllables.  But  it  has  been  demon- 
strated that  the  ictus  fell  upon  the  syllable  which  had  the  sentence 
accent  in  many  places  where  it  seems  to  conflict  with  the  traditional 
word  accent.  It  follows  that  if  we  could  have  based  our  study  upon 
the  sentence  accent  our  percentages  would  have  indicated  a  still 
stronger  tendency  toward  harmony  of  accent  and  ictus.  It  is  scarcely 
possible  any  longer  to  doubt  that  accent  was  an  important  feature 
of  early  dramatic  verse;  the  quantitative  nature  of  the  measures  was 
carefully  preserved,  but  at  the  same  time  accent  was  constantly  taken 
into  account.     Two  corollaries  follow  from  this  demonstration. 

It  has  been  held  by  Bennett  and  others  that  the  ictus  of  classical 
poetry  involved  little  or  no  stress,  that  it  was  merely  the  quantitative 
predominance  of  the  long  part  of  the  foot.  If  that  were  the  nature 
of  the  ictus  it  is  impossible  to  explain  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  poets 
to  make  it  fall  upon  the  accented  syllables.  The  verse  ictus,  at  least 
in  the  early  period,  must  have  involved  more  or  less  increase  of  stress. 

In  the  same  way  it  becomes  impossible  to  deny  an  element  of 
stress  to  the  Latin  accent.^  As  I  have  shown  elsewhere  (Trans, 
Amer,  Phil.  Assoc,  XLII,  50),  this  does  not  compel  us  to  doubt  the 
explicit  statements  of  the  Romans  that  their  accent  was  one  of  pitch. 
It  was  no  doubt  expiratory  and  musical  at  the  same  time;  which 
element  was  the  stronger  we  have  no  way  of  determining. 

Columbia  University 

»  So  Skutsch,  Glotta,  TV,  188  =Kleine  Schri/ten,  p.  491. 


